"Get this straight, mutie," growled the human through clenched teeth, his thin chest heaving. "In twenty-four hours our deal is done, and your hoop is mine. How does it feel to be a dead man, freak?"

Staying out of reach, Two Bears was startled by the reaction. "But Jake, I. . ."

"And if I ever catch you near her site I'll geek you on the spot and then go do your whole fragging family!"

Stunned, Two Bears just stood there, staring at the raving norm.

"OUT! GET THE FRAG OUT! AND NEVER GO NEAR HER AGAIN, YA STINKING ANIMAL!"

Moved more by the sheer power of emotions in the norm's words, Two Bears stumbled further into the alley, the slamming door cutting off any further conversation. Standing alone on the sunny concrete, he wondered why Jake was so hyped on him paying his respects to a gone friend. She'd chosen Jake, not him. Was he that selfish he couldn't even share her in death?

Quickly Two Bears moved off, dropping the map into one dumpster, the beard into another, trading his camera to a squatter for a soiled duster comprised of more patches than fabric, changing his appearance as much as possible as he headed for the rendezvous point. As looped as Jake sounded, he might go back on the deal at any time because of this. Everything was luck and speed from this point on.

Dropping into his chair, Jake fought to control his shaking. The son of a slitch! Muck-eating gleeb! Running stiff fingers through his thinning hair, he ground his teeth in impotence, then took a glass paperweight from his desk and threw it at the wall. Tears welled in his eyes, and he dropped his head into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

The big plan had always been to build up enough to live on and then take off for one of the Independent Keys. Largo, perhaps. Good coastal defense, lots of trees, non-aggression treaty with the other Keys and part of the Caribbean League itself. Sounded like heaven. And if he'd had to kill to get there, what better place to do some penance than paradise? But with Mel gone, it all became meaningless. His life became meaningless.

Fat Jake never told Two Bears, never told anybody, but Melinda had made her choice the afternoon of her death. She was going to go back to Adam, even though he was changed and their kids would probably be dwarfs. Their kids! The two of them, living together, laughing, loving, in bed. Together. Melinda with a crit! A scream boiled into his throat and Jacob Anderson clamped his jaw shut, biting back the noise, but the awful visions still filled his brain like a hellish hurricane. Two Bears had won, wasn't that enough? But no. She was dead and buried, and still he fought Jake for her attention. Denying him even the solace of the lie. Would this ever end? Ever?

Reality threatened to shatter and break apart into pieces. Fervently, the weeping man wished he could go out the door and kill the filthy thing that had stolen the heart of his woman. But even to an animal, his word was his bond. Unbreakable, sacrasanct. For today, the runt was untouchable. Protected.

The tears slowed as a bitter smile broke through and his face took on a feral expression. Safe for today. That was all he'd guaranteed. One day. Twenty-four hours at the most. However, tomorrow was another matter. Oh, tomorrow....

After that, he would leave this stinking town forever.

6.

On patrol in the royal gardens, Oswaldo Fontecchio found the knotted rope dangling down the west side of the Minister's Pavilion and immediately touched the commlink on his collar, sounding a yellow alert. It might be only the media again, or one of the prime minister's twenty-two children playing another prank on the house guards.

The bushes parted and two other of the Imperial Hand came into view, Hiko and Seami. Wearing matching blue suits of exquisite tailoring, both samurai stood more than two meters tall with a calm grace only obtainable with years of rigorous martial arts training. Their ward, Minister Man-jiro Nakahama, director of power and light for the royal city of Tokyo itself, was protected by a serious contingent of guards, human and machine. But no metahumans or altered lifeforms were involved, as the Nipponese considered any variance from the human standard utterly repulsive and abhorrent. And there was no richer or more powerful nation than Japan in the Awakened world of the twenty-first century.

Incredibly, Fontecchio was a member of the elite Imperial Hand. One of the fiver personally assigned to the Minister. For such a staggering honor to be bestowed on a barbarian, a half-Japanese, half-Italian gaijin from the UCAS, was almost beyond belief, and was solely a tribute to his unchipped abilities. Political clout and nuyen meant less than nothing when considering security personnel for such an exalted person.

"Yuki and Kaye are in the palace directing a sweep," said Hiko smoothly. "Perimeter reports no unauthorized vehicles, bikes, or carts." Even to the emotionally controlled main islanders, Hiko was considered unflappable. Solid stone. Ice 4. He was the son of a son of a son of a gov bodyguard. A family responsibility Fontecchio knew the samurai did not take lightly. His own daughter of two was already in training.

"Hai." Fontecchio said, responding to Yuki's transmission. The Hand were linked together by head coms twenty-four hours a day. Privacy was not a privilege they enjoyed.

"We found nothing," she said.

"Join up here," he said gruffly, then quickly added, "please."

"Hai."

Fontecchio turned toward Seami Motokiyo. A distant grandchild of the legendary poet, the burly man's chromed eyes were scanning the forest around them, searching for anything untoward. In private, he also wrote poetry; in public he taught najuitsu classes. A true warrior.

"Brother, I want a Matrix status stat."

Seami gave a short nod and his head kept going, falling to the ground at his feet as his neck stub gushed red blood into the air. From out of the bushes behind the falling corpse appeared a half-dozen figures dressed in solid black, their diakote katanas shining in the filtered light of the private garden.

"Ninjas," said Hito as if ordering miso soup, his cyberware extending from both arms. He dove forward in a shoulder roll, the twin monofilament blades removing the legs of two of the intruders. Falling, the dying assassins vivisected the bodyguard with the blinding speed of chipped reflexes. Only his unorthodox attack had allowed the warrior to get so close, so fast, before death.

Watching his friend die as his intestines spilled onto the manicured grass, Fontecchio coolly and calmly extended both hands as if to embrace the ninjas. Instantly from the belt holster at his waist a ferruled cable snaked upward, a massive pistol attached to the end of the metallic support. The Colt Manhunter slapped into his right palm, automatically firing, and then slammed into his left, firing and returning to the right to fire again. Three of the invisible warriors fell back, their throats crimson geysers.

The last ninja, the one prominently in the front, shimmered with distortion like a jumbled class nine holograph and was gone. A common trick. A childish ruse for the unwary.

"Jade palace, go hard," commanded Fontecchio, reloading his weapon with explosive-tipped flechettes. Chipped ninjas, every bodyguard's worst nightmare. "Full coverage on the lake, wakarimasu!"

Silence.

"Palace, report!"

Static, faint words of questioning, then screams.

"Yuki!"

Nothing.

Instantly, Fontecchio was sprinting for all he was worth through the delicate trees. The palace was compromised, two of the Hand dead already, maybe more. This was no rebel strike but a full assassination attempt by one of the Old Houses, or worse. A bush moved against the evening breeze and Fontecchio fired. Leaves exploded in the strident blast, along with blood and a spray of gray brains spiderwebbed with silver wires. Loping alongside the forest trail, Fontecchio pulled out a small device and flicked at it with his thumb. The signaling device would summon the military within minutes, letting them know this was not an exercise or practice. In all probability, he might get killed himself with the arrival of the overly excited troopers. But that was a part of the job. Hai! he asked himself. Hai, he answered solemnly.

Red ribbons attached to tree limbs and bushes, the streamers fluttering happily about. Fontecchio burst from the foliage and jerked to a halt on the perfect white sand of the sculptured shoreline, staring anxiously at the house.

A tiny wooden structure sat alone on a grassy island in the middle of a small lake of such sophisticated design none could tell if it was artificial or natural. Nor were such boorish distinctions important regarding the ancient tea house. It was a most private spot where the Minister Nakahama, infamous for his familial temper, could ritually go to seek forgiveness of whichever wife he had slighted this week. It was a thousand-year-old ceremony, very solemn and sacred. None but rogues would dare to disturb.

Before stepping onto the flagstone path that led to the tiny lacquered bridge, Fontecchio gestured and fired a round at the stones. Steelloy spears ten meters tall lanced from the soil, then razors snapped out along their shafts and began to spin in a tight interlocking pattern. A drifting leaf was sucked into the vortex of the machinery and disintegrated. Drek! Tea house defenses were on full. There were wards to hold off impetuous family members, but nothing to stay a determined assassin. It was not believed that such could penetrate this far into the grounds. Impossible. Unthinkable!

Staring at the paper windows, Fontecchio seriously debated firing a round in to warn the minister, but without knowing where his ward was, he might kill the man. And the walls were so thin as to offer scant protection from his weapon. Drek, frag and fragging drek! he raged silently. What had he washed with this morning? Couldn't remember. Damn, no other choice. And without further hesitation, he dove into the lake.

Fire ants crackled over his body from the electricity coursing through the clear water. It was painful, but not debilitating. Twice carp of unnatural size and tremendous jaws approached him hungrily, but backed off as they detected the lingering traces of the royal family soap on his skin. Mines of various types buried under the lake bottom allowed him passage once they ascertained his ID from the coded signals of the circuits implanted under his skin.

Reaching the shore, Fontecchio shrugged off his coat, the ballistic cloth heavily soaked with water and thus drastically slowing his responses. But as he stepped onto the grass, he was fiercely driven to his knees by an invisible barrier. Mana or technology, he had never been told. Holstering his weapon, he stayed perfectly still until his identity was confirmed and the barrier parted, allowing entrance.

A hand gesture and the Manhunter was back in his palm, rigid at the end of its support cable. Fontecchio took two steps, gave a savate kick, and the tea house door flew open. Sitting with crossed legs on opposite sides of a miniature coal brazier, the ceramic tea pot whistling softly under a perfect low boil, Minister Nakahama and the First Wife, Murasaki, were holding extremely small cups, frozen motionless in the process of turning them the necessary three times before taking three sips with a three-second pause between each.

Frowning, the Minister silently demanded an immediate explanation while Murasaki moved away from the bodyguard as she always did when one of the Hand burst in on them unexpectedly. This gave both the illusion of privacy to her husband and a modicum of combat room for the guards.

"Monkey and the tiger," said Fontecchio stepping close, giving the code for an assassination attempt in progress.

The Minister laid his cup aside and stood, waiting for more information when pain exploded in Fontecchio's back and he was brutally hurled forward to the floor.

Hurtled forward . . . forward . . . forward . . . the body, the blood, the screams, the hospital, the grave. That tiny cold grave.

Drenched in sweat, Oswaldo Fontecchio awoke in the darkness gasping for breath, both hands outstretched in an automatic defensive reaction. But the Manhunter did not slap into his open palm. In the dim light from the wall washstand of the coffin motel, he saw the VPR2 lying nearby on the fold-out table. Memories returned as his dream-state induced by too much saki slowly wore off. Rivulets of sweat running down his face, Fontecchio cradled his head trying to shut out the memories of his day of shame. How could he have been so stupid? He'd removed his wet coat because it slowed him down. Fool.

Reaching under his damp tee, he fingered the puckered scar below his right arm where the heavy-caliber slug had exited his body. If the slug from the assassin's rifle had not slammed into his collarbone, it would have struck the prime minister. As it was coated with a bio-toxin specifically tailored for his chemistry, he would have been dead in seconds.

Instead, it hit Fontecchio's internal bones, shattering them like glass, and ricocheted off, piercing his latissimus dorsi muscles to strike the Lady Murasakiti in the right temple, exiting through her pons. No toxin was necessary. Before she slumped to the floor, there was no life remaining in the tiny frame, her brains were literally splashed on the lacquered wall behind her.

Fontecchio nearly died himself as the medtechs battled the poison in his system. But as the toxchem was not designed for him, the effects were diminished enough to offer survival. But at a cost. Needing a scapegoat, his superiors naturally blamed him, the sole survivor of the Hand, for dereliction of duty, but the Emperor himself stayed the execution and banished Fontecchio forever. Death would have been kinder.

Incredibly, waiting for him at the airport gate as he shuffled toward the General Dynamics SV250 suborbital transport was a little girl all in white, her hair pulled back into a painfully tight bun. It was Tusiato, the daughter of Hiko-san. The child silently offered Fontecchio a red lacquered box and turned her back on him. He was speechless at the supreme insult.

Weakly, he boarded the stratoliner with the tourists and business executives bound for NorthAm. In the privacy of his seat, Fontecchio thumbed open the cyberlock on the armored box. Inside was his VPR2 and favorite Manhunter lying on a bed of white velvet. A deathday gift for a man who was no longer alive to his friends. And they had sent a child to deliver it. Fontecchio's resolve cracked under the awful impact of the gift, and he wept for the first time since the death of his parents.

Arriving penniless and friendless in North America, it had taken Fontecchio years to save half of the return fare, even with hoarding his funds by living in dumps like this.

Reaching for the bottle of synth-saki, he gave a start as the telecom beeped. Who could possibly know he was here in Miami? His last wetwork job had brought him here only hours ago. Fontecchio glanced at the dirty wall clock. Lie, he arrived yesterday. The N'York yakuza fixer who pimped for him would have word of his presence on the Matrix by now. Could be biz.

Taking a swig from the bottle, he only got a tiny sip of the horrid, lukewarm liquid. Bah, nothing tasted worse than warm saki. However, out of booze meant he should get back to work. A single night of drunken forgetfulness was all he allowed himself after a job. To do more was always tempting, something he often fought against, but it might threaten his reactions and risk getting killed out here among the barbarians where none would sing at his grave, or burn flowers at a shinto shrine for his spirit. Alone, he would be truly alone forever, if killed here. And that thought was even more intolerable than his disgrace.

Swinging his legs off the tiny bed, Fontecchio pushed it into the coffin wall, and wrapping a threadbare robe bearing the Imperial crest of Japan about himself, sat down heavily before the tiny com unit and hit the Accept key. It took two tries. The screen cleared to the picture of a gray-haired norm almost as skinny as a skeleton. A decker.

"Delphia here," Fontecchio said, slipping an herbal cigarette into his mouth from the pack in his robe pocket. "And you are?"

"Mr. Johnson. I have heard of you from Dr. Salvatore and Raincloud. You come most highly referred."

With a pocketflash, Fontecchio lit the cigarette. The pungent cloying fumes set fire to his lungs, but the misty cloud of the fledgling hangover quickly fled under the harsh administrations of the burning herbs. "What is the job and how much?"

"I've got work for you with a dwarf named Two Bears," the norm stated, his hands very white on the old macroplas desk before him. Then he quickly ran down what he knew and what it would pay.

"Interested?" the fixer asked.

Thoughtfully, Fontecchio stared at the telecom. How had he fallen so low? A spark flared for a nano inside him, but he quickly ground it out like the cigarette butt. He lit a fresh stick and pulled the smoke deep into his aching lungs, letting the white smoke out in a stream at the rust-stained ceiling panels.

"Hai!" he said, and then added, "where and when?"

7.

Sitting at a table inside a wide tent on the tenth floor of an ancient condoplex at Palm and Cove, Two Bears and Thumbs field-stripped dirty weapons, spraying lubricant where needed and slipping on nylon bushings wherever possible so that lubing would never be needed again. The sourceless lights in the cool tent clearly illuminated the spacious table piled with guns, ammo clips, some nice knives, several grenades, and a couple of credsticks coated with sticky blood.

"Latin Kings didn't take very good care of their iron," observed Two Bears, working the bolt on a Ceska. "Dumb slots."

"It's why I'm alive and those guards aren't," smirked Thumbs, contemptuously peering down the barrel of a Beretta. "A dirty weapon will always jam at exactly the wrong moment. Law of the street number fourteen."

"That's hard data," agreed Two Bears, slamming a freshly loaded clip into the machine pistol and laying it aside. "So nice of the Kings to donate these fine weapons to the run." With a whisper, the four long monofilament blades slid out of Thumbs' left forearm. "They didn't do it willingly."

"So I guessed," harrumped Two Bears.

A shrug. "I sliced as few of the guns as I could. But I gotta admit, some of those gleebs refused to let go no matter how much I killed 'em."

"And we got their credsticks too!"

"Those? They're fakes to scam tourists," said Thumbs. "Nice work, but useless."

"Pity." Two Bears started to disassemble a Light Fire 70. "Fat Jake sure isn't going to be happy about this."

"Think he'll queer the deal?" asked Thumbs, a worried note creeping into his gravelly voice. He'd connected up with Two Bears after mopping the floor with the Latin Kings' lookout team across the street from the Casa Cabana. Then he'd hung around the area until the halfer reappeared and he could approach him. The little guy hadn't needed much persuading. He said his name was Adam Two Bears and that he was putting together a team to help him find out the identity of someone or something called IronHell.

"Nyah. He doesn't know we're working together, so why should he?" said Two Bears, placing slides and chips carefully in order on a clean cloth. "But just in case, be ready to geek any others who arrive until I decide they're friendlies."

"You're the boss."

"Yeah, right." Two Bears squinted at the big troll so absorbed in his work. "You know, I damn near had a coronary when you appeared in the alley behind the Casa carrying a pile of guns."

"You did look pale," said Thumbs, busy stripping a pistol. "Aw, crud, bad spring. Gotta toss it." He did so, adding to the small pile in the macroplas box in the corner of the tent. "But I figured you'd pay to find out about the corp limo. And if I can get nuyen for toasting some downtown yammer-heads, that's granite. Merry Xmas."

"Data is gold. Say, why'd you take these?" Two Bears asked, nudging a stack of loaded clips. "Nice, but we don't have any iron to fit them."

"Hey, less toys in the hands of the unfit. Besides, I know some folks we can sell them to for a few extra nuyen." Thumbs gave a wink.

"Flash move, omae." Two Bears was impressed. "You ever miss a chance to make a profit?"

"Gimme a doubloon and I'll tell ya."

Chuckling at the touristy reference to nuyen, Two Bears wiped the silicon off his hands with a napkin and bit into a steaming golden burrito lying on a sheet of waxed paper. "This is good," he said, munching happily. "Father John's?" Thumbs dry-fired a pistol next to his ear, listening to the works. "A little tight. Gotta reset the ejector. Where's the tools?"

"Here. Father John's?"

"Course. Is there any other burrito stand in town fit for a chummer to eat at?"

"Not unless you got a taste for devil rat." Two Bears wolfed down the rest, then cleaned the grease off his hands, and then started checking the next weapon, a lovely Crusader with silencer. "This one's for me."

"Done and done. Check the trigger action. It felt sloppy when I pried it out of the guy's grip."

"Yeah, it is loose. Good call. Hex wrench?"

"Here. Damn, we're out of bushing. Pass the silicon spray."

The can was relayed again. "Once the fragging decker gets here we'll do a search on the limo that showed up after you blew up the telecom. Maybe it's from IronHell."

"Gonna be tough."

" 'Cause of the way IronHell zapped Sister Wizard so fast?" Two Bears shook his head. "That's got to be some serious IC protecting whatever file she got to."